i was just sort of wondering, what did other teams do to be able to practice with the bot. how many teams built fields, or bridges, or goals, or whatever. and how realistic were they

Carolyn Duncan

07-24-2001, 08:51 PM

My old team built a goal and a bridge. They were to the specs. In order to really practice we had to use the band room, I'm not sure that the carpet was the same, or the hallway and cover the floor with the door mats.

Clark Gilbert

07-24-2001, 09:09 PM

The Technokats build the entire field for that years game....then after we are done using it for practice we obiviously use it for IRI (Indiana Robotics Invitational)...

:D

Tom Schindler

07-24-2001, 09:11 PM

RAGE (team 173) graciously offered their practice field (a full field) to us so we could practice with them. I'd say we got about 25-35 hours of practice in in between hartford and nationals. The field they set up was a complete field, to exact specs. Well they were as close as they could get... we all know the problems FIRST had this year with the 'sticky bridges' etc.

Tom

Mike Soukup

07-24-2001, 09:22 PM

Team 111 had a full sized playing field this year with goals and a bridge built to the specs. Unfortunately Motorola is giving up the lease on the building we had the field at, so we'll probably have an incomplete field next year.

Mike

A. Leese

07-24-2001, 10:21 PM

My team built a goal and a bridge (and layed down the carpet for the playing field). The goal, however, was usually apart for space reasons and the bridge became a toy for us all (up and down and up and down and..). Oh well. Our bot didn't get finished that much ahead of the ship date, anyway..lol

~Angela who remembers almost getting launched in the air when G jumped onto the bridge with her sitting on the end of it

David Kelly

07-24-2001, 10:25 PM

we're so poor that we had to steal some of the stuff for the ramp from the construction workers at school. construction will end when we start school so we won;t be able to do that anymore.

Anne Lam

07-24-2001, 10:41 PM

To all who don't know, we (T368) were a limbo/goal grabbing/stretcher pulling bot. We had a full playing field with all the works. However, since we didn't have a disabled bot at our dispense to test our 'stretcher-pulling" feature. We used me as dead weight on the stretcher quite often to make it 'realistic'. And of course, the nose dive into the carpet was also very realistic as well.

Joe Ross

07-24-2001, 11:25 PM

we built a very approximate bridge. It didn't have the diamond plating on the sides and the weights on the poles were not exact, though we attempted to compensate.

We made 2 goals fairly close to the specs, except that we modified several kee-klamps that we had instead of buying new ones to hold the "grab-bar"

Our philosophy is to build the essentials as quickly and cheaply as possible. After it's built, we attempt to compensate for any modifications that we made to the original design.

We didn't have any trouble with major differences between our field and FIRST's, but we ran out of time to use our field a lot.

Tom Fairchild

07-24-2001, 11:45 PM

Our team built a ramp with a small section of the bar attached to it on one side and two goals. I have found that this has become great for demonstrations. Doesn't take up all that much room, but lets us do everything that our bot could do in competition (big balls, balance, limbo). Bridge was built to exact specifications but I found that over time it became much more "stickier" (Must be from our team being in Virginia!). We built it pretty soon after the game was released, although not as quickly as I would have liked to have. Having the field there was GREAT for idea testing and visualization, along with testing some key things during the building phase like "will the robot actually fit under that thing?"

~Tom~

Bill Gold

07-25-2001, 01:25 AM

My team built the bridge and two goals. Our bridge wasn't in competition condition, no carpet or diamond plate and we used random objects for the weights (spindles of wires, etc). But we mainly used the goals to practice putting up the large balls. We practiced outside when it wasn't raining, and it wasn't until after our first regional that our school let us use the small gym (which is most likely where we'll be building next year's 'bot).

Brian Savitt

07-25-2001, 11:11 AM

Last year our team wanted a full size field so we went to a warehouse and rented the appropriate amount of space for a field but that caused many problems.
1) THe robot was being built in a different building then where the arena was.
2)The whole team was never together to get work done...

Our robot this year was a limbo/big ball/balance from off the bridge 1 goal bot.
So this year Ethicon (our sponsor) was nice enough to give us a room just big enough to build an arena so that we could have the whole team together...We had an exact bridge by about a week after the game was released(including the right weights and diamond plate on the side for the exact weight of a replica FIRST bridge) and we had 2 goals. However, we had the carpet but, on either side of the bridge tehre was about 3 feet to manuver(sp?) The field definetly helped our driving team (me being the driver) because we made room enough for us to grab a ball put it on the goal and balance it. Of course we had to compensate for time that it would have taken when going for the big ball or getting back to the endzone, since we had such a small field....But all in all a mini field is definetly better then no field...

Brian Team 56

Amadkow

07-25-2001, 11:25 AM

We built a bridge that had no diamond plate on the side and we built two goals. The goals were about 1 foot shorter than what they were suposed to because the cieling was very low where we had to set up our practice field.

mike o'leary

07-25-2001, 01:37 PM

we built vague semblences of the goal and the bar...the bar was really a couple of peaces of wood nailed together and the goal...well...the goal was intereting...

EddieMcD

07-25-2001, 01:55 PM

We built 2 goals, and a perfect bridge (without the diamond plate). We also had a full length field, however, we were only able to get about 2/3 of the width due to the poles holding the building up.

Yes, we always played on the bridge when there was nothing to do, and it was a popular nap spot. And for the record, we made our own game called FIRSTketball (for lack of a better name), and played pong with the big balls. :D

Tom Fairchild

07-25-2001, 03:33 PM

Funny that everyone's talking about the diamond plate. We had diamond plate on the sides, although I don't think it affected the bridge at all. We did have a bunch of the stuff left over and thought that the robot would look really nice if it were made out of it. I think it does, but I also think it was more work than it was good for. Diamond plate is not an easy material to work with when it comes to shaping, bending, cutting, etc.

~Tom~

For a pic of the diamond plating, click on my picture and look at the shiny thing holding the large ball.

Carolyn Duncan

07-25-2001, 08:27 PM

My team had contests with our bridge to see how many people we could pile up and still sleep comfortably. We took naps often due to the hours we were there and the number of people we didn't have doing work. We decided that sleeping with your head on the low side of the bridge was the most comfortable.

mike o'leary

07-28-2001, 01:32 PM

i know there was a ramp outside of curie at nats. just randomly there, but we had some fun with it.

Carolyn Duncan

07-29-2001, 12:02 PM

I think that was for practicing but there were always people playing on it.

Wayne Doenges

07-30-2001, 08:44 AM

Our team built a full size field, full size goals and ramp (steel plate instead of diamond plate). All were to specifications.
Our practice field was located 5 miles from the school. Advanced Engineering loaned us the use of there new warehouse. We got the carpeting from an old school that was being destroyed. It was hard to do a full practice without a small convoy.
It was great when we had both of our robots (primary and back-up) on the practice field :)

skrussel

07-30-2001, 08:48 AM

The Ford teams all work together at the same place, and we have a complete field, made to specs.
BTW, if any teams would like to practice on our playing field next season, you are welcome to come over and use it. If any of our robots are done, we'll even spar with you! (contact skrussel@umich.edu)

Anthony S.

07-30-2001, 04:33 PM

We had just about everything. Full size playing field, goals, and stretcher. We were lucky, but after it was built, there was really no standing room, so on media day it was VERY cramped. I hope we're as lucky next year. We also used people for dead weight for the stretcher. We even had a 200lbs person riding the stretcher around the pit at Nats to try to advertise, but people didn't really pay much attention to the stretcher even though it would have got lots of extra points in the finals.

Matt Ryan

08-02-2001, 09:06 PM

Team HYPER had a full field, built to FIRST's specs. It went on to be used for the "mini-meet" before our robots were to be shipped.

mike o'leary

08-03-2001, 02:55 PM

i remember that mini-meet. i sorta had the tip of my finger ripped up there

Carolyn Duncan

08-03-2001, 03:55 PM

Was that the meet that had the short clip on the web?

Matt Ryan

08-03-2001, 04:32 PM

Originally posted by Carolyn Duncan
Was that the meet that had the short clip on the web?

Originally posted by Anthony S.
We had just about everything. Full size playing field, goals, and stretcher. We were lucky, but after it was built, there was really no standing room, so on media day it was VERY cramped. I hope we're as lucky next year. We also used people for dead weight for the stretcher. We even had a 200lbs person riding the stretcher around the pit at Nats to try to advertise, but people didn't really pay much attention to the stretcher even though it would have got lots of extra points in the finals.

But the trade-off with the stretcher was time, and no one wanted to waste the time for the stretcher, for there was no guarantee that it would get over on the first try.

I remember a match where we had 260lbs of robot on our weakest point during the nats...the pit crew cringed, but were overjoyed when they found out that our ramp held up perfectly (the lower section)...but it wasted time because our motors couldn't drive the wheels as fast with three times our weight on them.

Clark Gilbert

08-03-2001, 10:33 PM

We (the TechnoKats) are one of the teams out there that builds an entire field.....although i hope FIRST goes with a different shapped field next year since the our field is pretty messed up since we never put it back together after IRI...:)

Anthony S.

08-04-2001, 04:40 PM

originally posted by Matt Ryan
But the trade-off with the stretcher was time, and no one wanted to waste the time for the stretcher, for there was no guarantee that it would get over on the first try.

I remember a match where we had 260lbs of robot on our weakest point during the nats...the pit crew cringed, but were overjoyed when they found out that our ramp held up perfectly (the lower section)...but it wasted time because our motors couldn't drive the wheels as fast with three times our weight on them.

Very much true, some teams had weak drive systems and were unable to successfully pull the stretcher over. But our robot had done it successfully many times. I do understand, it is taking a big chance and its not really worth it, but its really worth it when scores are getting close and you know that a team can do it successufully.

Tom Fairchild

08-04-2001, 11:40 PM

I disagree about the stretcher issue, but am also a nice enough of a guy to start a new thred about it. ;)

~Tom~, who is trying hard to stop the flow of off-topic discussions. :)